The present invention relates to a face and eye guard device. The principles of the present invention are mainly pertinent to the game of lacrosse and particularly women's lacrosse where protective headgear is not required to be worn, but eye protection is necessary.
In the game of women's lacrosse, as reported at www.uslacrosse.org, protective eye wear became required on or after Jan. 1, 2005. As reported at that website, the purpose of that rule is to acknowledge “that while women's lacrosse is a comparatively safe sport, the use of protective eye wear will prevent the rare but catastrophic eye injury at every level of play.”
Protective eye wear qualified for use in the game of women's lacrosse is required to meet the most current standard ASTM F803-03 which states that protective eye wear should withstand forces generated by a ball traveling 45 miles per hour for youth play, and 60 miles per hour for adult play defined as high school and older. Such eye wear must not only meet the current ASTM specification standard, but U.S. lacrosse is also required to receive independent confirmation from a third party testing facility recommended by the Protective Eyewear Certification Council (PECC), and the eye wear must also meet the standards of the American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA).
The present invention has been designed to comply with ASTM Standard F803-03.
Prior art protective eye wear includes devices consisting of steel wire face masks and plastic spectacles. Problems and deficiencies in prior art devices are numerous. These include the weight of protective eye wear and the high cost of manufacture, particularly in association with welded steel wire face masks. In the case of Plano plastic eye wear, a severe problem involves fogging of the plastic lens. As such, wire guards are those most favored in the marketplace today because they don't fog or scratch. Of course, wire guards diminish vision. Plano plastic eye guards are preferred by some due to their light weight and relatively low cost, but their lenses cloud up and scratch.
If it were possible to combine the best features of plastic eye guards, namely, light weight and low cost with the best features of wire eye guards, namely, lack of fogging and scratching, a distinct improvement in eye protection for the game of women's lacrosse would be achieved. It is with these thoughts in mind that the present invention was developed.